Posts Tagged ‘interchangeablelens’

If you’re planning to attend the Kentucky Derby early next month, you might want to make sure you’ll be content with capturing your memories with a smartphone or point-and-shoot. Churchill Downs, the racetrack that hosts the famous horse race, has unveiled new security measures that will prevent attendees from bringing certain items onto the grounds. Among them: all interchangeable lens cameras.Read more…

When Sony unveiled its “One Sony” game plan back in March after posting billions in losses, the company highlighted digital photography as one of its three main pillars going forward. It was a bit of a surprise, then, when Sony announced today that it will soon be closing a large lens manufacturing factory in Japan as part of the restructuring efforts.Read more…

Fujifilm is set to release an interchangeable lens mirrorless camera — likely styled like the X100 and X10 — in February 2012, and details about the camera are already starting to leak onto the Internet. Six photos that appear to show the upcoming camera were leaked on Chinese forum Xitek, but were quickly taken down. PhotoRumors writes that the new camera will be called the Fuji LX and will pack an APS-C sensor.Read more…

Fans of the Fujifilm X100 who are hoping the company will release an interchangeable lens successor to the camera may soon get their wish. Camera division chief Takeshi Higuchi strongly hinted at their plans for an interchangeable lens camera in an interview with Reuters:

The launch of a mirrorless camera, which has an electronic viewfinder, making it lighter and more compact than a professional-style single-lens reflex camera, would be an extension of Fujifilm’s effort to move upmarket and would put it in direct competition with Sony.

The X100 uses an APS-C-sized sensor found in many DSLR cameras. The company is currently in fifth place in digital camera sales behind Canon, Sony, Nikon and Samsung, but Higuchi says the company plans on passing Samsung by next year and Nikon within three years. Given how in-demand the X100 has been, we’d say Fujifilm is off to a good start.

Canon and Nikon broke ground when they launched DSLRs that have HD video capabilities. Now Sony’s taking a different approach by offering a comparatively affordable HD video camera with all the attractiveness of interchangeable lenses, plus the ability to take high resolution stills.

Not only will the camcorder share the same Sony E-mount as the NEX series (it comes standard with a kit 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 lens), Sony DSLR owners will be pleased to know that with a separate adapter, the camcorder can be mounted with any A-mount lenses — including Sony G and Carl Zeiss lenses.

The camcorder also has the same Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor as the NEX-3 and NEX-5. The DSLR sized sensor alone gives the camera a lot of extra real estate to work with; Sony boasts the sensor to be approximately 19.5 times larger than the standard sensor of conventional camcorders.

The NEX-VG10 can shoot 1920×1080 high def video at 60 fps, which Sony says is ideal for Blu-Ray recording. And for stills shooting, it can capture 14 megapixel images with a continuous burst of up to 7 fps.

Some benefits of using the NEX-VG10 over a video DSLR is that the camcorder has the right ergonomics and image stabilization for shooting video, and doesn’t have the same limited clip time that plagues DSLR video shooters — it can shoot up to 315 continuous minutes. Also, Sony says the NEX-VG10 has a silent auto-focus system that could cut down on noise typical on video DSLRs.

Stills shooters may appreciate the camera’s Auto HDR mode, but the fact that it doesn’t shoot RAW images could be a dealbreaker.

Nikon President Makoto Kimura says that in order to keep its “top position” in Japan’s DSLR market, it needs to create an “entirely new domain” that may go well beyond its plans for a mirrorless, EVIL camera.

In an interview with Pen News Weekly, Kimura said:

“Nowadays digital cameras take movies, performance of cameraphones is rapidly advancing and demand for simple movie cameras for uploading video on the Internet is on the rise. Redefinition of photography may become necessary.”

Much of this comes at the heels of Canon’s revelation of their future plans at the Shanghai World Expo, with its Wonder Camera presentation. With the introduction of cameras like the iPhone 4 and other smartphones with HD video modes, both companies suggest that there is a lot of pressure to keep abreast of the improving technology in typically lower-end camera competition from camera phones, as well as in higher end DSLRs with video capabilities. It seems that Kimura hopes to reassert Nikon’s product by marketing EVIL cameras to consumers primarily for higher quality video and video sharing, perhaps through a built-in internet mode.

However, it sounds like Nikon may have more up its sleeve than simply adding better video and internet. Kimura also said:

“It will be a camera that may take photos of the world that the traditional SLR cannot reach.”

Sony recently announced an interchangeable lens camcorder, but if you can’t stand the wait until it’s released, cheap gadget dealer Brando has these Vivikai camcorders that come equipped with an 8x telescope. The Chinese company, Vivikai (no relation to Vivitar) has more photos of this Frankenstein camcorder mod on their site.

In spite of decent specs, including 12 megapixel image resolution and ISO 100, the standard definition telescoped image looks like it was taken with a toy camera. But for $100, that sounds about right.